Indiana Basketball's NCAA Tournament Hopes in Better Shape After 2 'Really Good Wins'

LOS ANGELES — Indiana basketball needed only eight days to flip the trajectory of its season.

Entering their Jan. 23 contest at Rutgers, the Hoosiers were reeling. They had lost four consecutive games — three against top 10 teams, all but one of their defeats by 14-plus points — and hadn’t offered much reason for optimism moving forward.

The table has since turned. Dramatically.

Indiana dominated Rutgers, 82–59, on the road and, if nothing else, re-opened the door for possibility. Still, the Hoosiers started last week with a lackluster NCAA Tournament resume, one without a Quadrant 1 victory.

The biggest week in Indiana coach Darian DeVries’ first season at the helm ensued. The Hoosiers capitalized.

Indiana knocked off archrival and 12th-ranked Purdue, 72–67, on Tuesday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. The win, which came in front of a vintage, loud Assembly Hall crowd, gave DeVries his first signature win and the team’s first marquee win.

The Hoosiers left Bloomington for the west coast three days later, facing another Quad 1 opportunity in a road bout with UCLA. Indiana blew a 10-point lead in the final two minutes but escaped to earn a 98–97 victory in double overtime.

In eight days, Indiana won three games, bolstered its resume with a pair of Quad 1 victories and turned DeVries’ first season from a lost cause to a fast-filling bucket of hope.

But DeVries, speaking to reporters after Indiana’s win over UCLA, paid no mind to the week that brought the Hoosiers onto the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble entering Tuesday night’s game against USC.

“We really have, like, zero concern about that right now,” DeVries said, “To me, it's just, ‘Win the next game.’ And like I said, if you stack up enough of them, it'll be what it's going to be. But we can't worry about that stuff. I'm only worried about the USC (game). Control what we can control right in front of us.”

Indiana (15–7, 6-5 Big Ten) has quality metrics entering February.

Of the sites and ratings used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, the Hoosiers rank No. 30 in the NET, No. 33 in KenPom, No. 23 in Bart Torvik and No. 25 in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.

There have been 28 bracket projections released since Indiana’s win over UCLA, and the Hoosiers are included in 27 of them, according to BracketMatrix. They’re primarily slotted as a 9, 10 or 11 seed.

Indiana righted a once-sinking ship and secured much-needed Quadrant 1 wins last week. And while DeVries’ mind isn’t focused on March Madness, he acknowledged the magnitude of the Hoosiers’ wins over Purdue and UCLA.

“In the big picture, do they mean something? Yeah, absolutely,” DeVries said. “But in order to make it, you've got to beat those teams. And those are two really good wins that will carry us for a while.”

The Hoosiers have nine regular season games remaining — five at home, four on the road — before a trip to Chicago for the Big Ten Tournament. The journey starts at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday, when they face USC (16–6, 5–6 Big Ten) inside the Galen Center in Los Angeles.

USC ranks No. 48 in the NET, giving Indiana another chance to grab a Quadrant 1 win and further improve its NCAA Tournament standing. The Hoosiers feel they’ve bonded closer and are playing with better togetherness over the past two weeks.

On-court results have skyrocketed. So have March Madness propositions.

Indiana, which hasn’t been to the postseason since 2023, is well-positioned to put on its dancing shoes in March. But the Hoosiers still have games to win, a resume to build and statements to make.

Though Indiana, with its resiliency and response to a season once at risk of spiraling, feels it’s already sent a loud message to the rest of the nation.

“I feel like we're serious,” junior guard Nick Dorn said after beating UCLA. “Some people could talk in the media and things like that, but we don't pay attention to that. We just go to work every day, put our heads down, and keep grinding.”